Heidi in the Sky
With Diamonds

Updated Dec. 2, 1998 12:01 a.m. ET

Remember needle park? The Swiss, it would seem, haven't forgotten the dirty syringes and unsavory characters that hung out there. In the mid-1980s, the city of Zurich designated Platzspitz Park as a free-drugs zone. And it quickly deteriorated into a squalid Mecca for every lowlife under the marmalade sky. So on Sunday, when Swiss voters were asked in a national referendum whether to turn the country into a great big needle park, they declined.

The proposed constitutional amendment was overwhelmingly rejected 74% to 26%....